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As the United States and China race to dominate advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, Iran leaned on an age-old instrument to bring the world economy to its knees: sea mines. A cease-fire between Washington and Tehran appeared to buckle on Wednesday, putting plans to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz in jeopardy. It is unclear how much of the critical shipping route Iran mined during the recent war—and how long it will take for commercial ships to be certain that the waterway is clear.

This has implications beyond Iran. Sea mines are relatively old and simple technology. But controlling their spread and use may be just as important as doing so for technologically advanced weaponry. Both China and the United States have skin in the game.

As the United States and China race to dominate advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, Iran leaned on an age-old instrument to bring the world economy to its knees: sea mines. A cease-fire between Washington and Tehran appeared to buckle on Wednesday, putting plans to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz in jeopardy. It is unclear how much of the critical shipping route Iran mined during the recent war—and how long it will take for commercial ships to be certain that the waterway is clear.

This has implications beyond Iran. Sea mines are relatively old and simple technology. But controlling their spread and use may be just as important as doing so for technologically advanced weaponry. Both China and the United States have skin in the game.

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had little historical precedent. Starting in late February, Tehran effectively blocked 20 percent of the world’s oil (and nearly half of China’s oil supply) for months, stranding around 2,000 ships in the Persian Gulf. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned in April that that there was a “likelihood of the presence of various types of anti-ship mines in the main traffic zone.”

The Hormuz crisis underscored how much both Washington and Beijing depend on free-flowing seas for trade and security. Gas prices spiked to more than $4 per gallon in the United States. With Asian economies cut off from energy supplies, Chinese crude imports fell to their lowest levels in a decade, forcing Chinese firms to draw down their oil reserves.

While the Hormuz crisis shows how acutely sea mines—or even the mere threat thereof—can hurt global trade, they have long posed asymmetric risks.

Sea mines supplied by the Soviet Union and laid by North Korea stalled U.S. ships from reaching Korea in 1950 during the Korean War. In 1984, sea mines laid in the Red Sea—likely by Libya—damaged at least 17 vessels, including a Soviet-chartered freighter. In the so-called “tanker wars” of the late 1980s, Iran laid mines across the Persian Gulf. As part of that conflict, in 1988, an Iranian mine nearly sunk a U.S. ship. By the........

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